New Mazdas Loiter in Ports As Company Reports Profit Dive

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

The fiscal year that wrapped up at the end of March was not a good one for Mazda, the company claims, with profit cut almost in half amid fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, Mazda revealed a full-year operating profit of just $408 million — its lowest showing in 8 years.

Smaller than its Japanese rivals and heavily dependent on the North American consumer, Mazda was hit hard by lockdown orders that dried up sales in the U.S. and Canada in March.

This, after a 2019 spent struggling to regain its footing in the market. The launch of the somewhat upscale current-generation Mazda 3 didn’t go off exactly as planned, though the company’s CX-5 crossover remains popular. Last year also brought the introduction of the CX-30 small crossover, a model that bridges the gap between the tiny, slow-selling CX-3 and the CX-5.

While the first two months of the calendar year did bring an improvement in U.S. sales, March wiped out those gains. Volume fell 41.8 percent that month, year over year, as dealerships closed and residents battened down the hatches. April wasn’t any better, with sales down 44.5 percent.

With operating profit down 47 percent (from last year’s $769 million), the automaker declined to release a forecast for the current fiscal year. All it would say is that the business environment is “expected to remain highly uncertain due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.”

Hampering Mazda’s return to full production in Japan is a backlog of undelivered vehicles clogging U.S. ports. Burning cash, the automaker has tapped three Japanese banks and other lenders for sizable loans, Reuters reports.

Globally, the automaker’s sales fell 9.1 percent in the year ended March, with North American volume down 5.8 percent. The U.S.’s share of that decline was 4.1 percent, though the overall cratering of the market in March meant that Mazda’s market share didn’t drop.

[Image: Mazda]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • APaGttH APaGttH on May 14, 2020

    Changing fortunes have hurt Mazda coupled with missteps. Americans are quite clear they don't give a crap about near-luxury quasi-performance. A series of questionable designs, pricing issues on some models, the bad history of the 3.0L V6, and a reputation for automatic transmissions even less reliable than Nissan. This is a brand I want to love - badly. For me Mazda is like Acura a decade ago. A brand I desperately wanted to love, their products "close" but not close enough. They have a couple of good products to offer, but not enough to stem the bleeding. In a lot of ways, I'm surprised they haven't looked for a merger or been absorbed. In hindsight, it seems Ford got a lot more from their partnership than the other way around.

    • Bd2 Bd2 on May 14, 2020

      Going mainstream "premium" (w/ the requisite price hike) has always been a risky move for the US market; see VW, which abandoned that and turned to developing vehicles specifically for the US market (copious amounts of interior space at a very competitive price-point).

  • Inside Looking Out Inside Looking Out on May 14, 2020

    Another Lancia, maker of semi-premium sporty cars?

  • ArialATOMV8 All I hope is that the 4Runner stays rugged and reliable.
  • Arthur Dailey Good. Whatever upsets the Chinese government is fine with me. And yes they are probably monitoring this thread/site.
  • Jalop1991 WTO--the BBB of the international trade world.
  • Dukeisduke If this is really a supplier issue (Dana-Spicer? American Axle?), Kia should step up and say they're going to repair the vehicles (the electronic parking brake change is a temporary fix) and lean on or sue the supplier to force them to reimburse Kia Motors for the cost of the recall.Neglecting the shaft repairs are just going to make for some expensive repairs for the owners down the road.
  • MaintenanceCosts But we were all told that Joe Biden does whatever China commands him to!
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